Abstract [en]

(From the chapter) The expanding array of new media offer many different ways in which young people can actively engage in media making and exchange. Although such activities might be very localized in terms of their immediate production processes and relationships, they also have the potential to create global products, both in terms of their distribution and audiences (through the Internet) as well as in the resources on which they might draw for inspiration. Youth cultures may have local references and influences, but they are also increasingly global, allowing young people from very different parts of the world to recognize, identify with, and utilize similar styles of music, fashion, graphics, and dance. These global styles are not exclusively derived from the U.S. mainstream, but include other influences and countercultures. Contemporary popular music, for example, often incorporates a range of different styles, bringing them together to create new forms. For children who have experienced migration, separation, and new settlement and who are living their everyday lives with different cultural influences, these developments are particularly significant, and they also raise several interesting questions for educators and researchers involved with youth media work. What media do young migrants and refugees draw on when making their own productions? What role can media production play in communicating the experiences of migration? How are such productions received and interpreted by other youth? Can such productions form part of research looking into the lives and experiences of young people? What are the implications for media education, particularly in the context of intercultural exchange and learning? To examine some of these questions, we would like to discuss the production and exchange of a series of videos made by young people participating in the European project Children in Communication About Migration (CHICAM; www.chicam.net). The project comprised six European countries: Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. CHICAM was an action research project funded by the European Commission (Framework 5 Program) and coordinated by the Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media at the Institute of Education, University of London. Six media clubs for refugee and migrant children ages 10 to 14 years were set up in the participating countries. The clubs met weekly after school over the course of a year, with some extra full days during school holidays. The clubs made videos and exchanged them on the internet. The research focused on particular themes (education, peer relations, family, and intercultural communication), and the videos made by the children were mainly on these topics. In this chapter, we look at a small set of productions within the genre of rap. We discuss two videos in some detail, focusing on how they were made, the ways in which they used global youth culture as their starting point, and their significance in the context of the young people's experiences of migration.